Eating meat gets harder morally

Sunday

Nov 3, 2013 at 6:00 AMNov 3, 2013 at 7:01 AM

By Dianne Williamson, TELEGRAM & GAZETTE STAFF

I attended a pig roast this summer, one of those elaborate affairs where a porker is slow-roasted on a spit. Fascinated by the image and desensitized by cocktails, I snapped a photo and posted it on Facebook.

BIG mistake. While some people liked the photo and posted funny comments, others were offended that I not only posted the picture, but attended an event that featured the ritualistic basting of an innocent animal.

"I hope we all come back as slaughter animals," wrote friend and animal activist Charlene Arsenault. "I hope we are all in small cages, can't move, and then live in fear and everyone dances around us while they eat us and post pictures of our dead, charred bodies. It may be food, but this is a mockery."

Charlene had strong opinions, as did others who suggested she get off her soap box and chill. We eat pigs, noted the carnivores of my crowd. Get over it.

But the debate over how we treat God's lesser creatures is heating up, no pun intended, and I've noticed a seismic opinion shift over the past few years when it comes to our treatment of animals and the ethics of eating them.

I love pork and have been known to hector diner companions to share the roast suckling pig dish at Via. I've poked mercilessly at PETA and have felt nothing but disdain for people opposed to animal testing that could lead to lifesaving cures for humans. So I'm late to the debate, which is another way of admitting that I've remained ignorant of what I didn't wish to know.

Let's start with dogs. Recent research shows that their brains react similarly to humans in terms of emotion, feeling and suffering. In America, we pamper our pets and let them sleep in our beds. The national outrage over the torture of Puppy Doe highlights our reverence for canines and revulsion for those who mistreat them.

But in other parts of the world, dogs are eaten. How primitive, we gasp. But the brains of dogs are very similar to pigs. So how do we rationalize the way we dote over puppies and devour piglets?

"It's all just cultural preference, habit, and custom…" argues Matthew Scully in a compelling essay published in The National Review. "Morally, the differences between pigs and dogs, and between our treatment of them, are purely conventional, the technical term for meaningless." He also noted that, in some meat markets of Thailand, Vietnam and South Korea, dogs are placed in stress cases and their throats are cut in front of other dogs awaiting the same fate, because fear is believed to improve the taste of the meat.

Meanwhile, Charles Camosy, assistant professor of Christian Ethics at Fordham University, has written a compelling book titled "For Love of Animals" that demands Christians and conservatives — who have traditionally dismissed animal rights as a liberal cause — understand that our treatment of animals is morally indefensible, and he draws parallels between the morality of a pro-life stance and a pro-animal rights position.

So what's a carnivore to do? We've long argued that meat is ingrained in our culture, that it's nutritious, delicious and part of the natural order. Heck, they're just dumb creatures, put on Earth for our benefit. Those factory farms are terrible, but we don't see the suffering in the supermarket.

"Animals have a moral dignity of their own, a point that nearly everyone, including even some people in cruel industries, will happily concede…," Scully writes.

Food for thought.

I can't promise that I'll turn vegan tomorrow. Like many other humans, however, I'm beginning to find myself more and more uncomfortable with the pork I put on my plate.